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Iswanto Hartono is a conceptual artist and architect based in jakarta. His recent project presents a fighter plane Stealth’s construction. The plane will be exhibited at Soemardja Gallery , Bandung, early of April. Below is an interview with Abidin Kusno and Stephanus Huwae in jakarta, regarding the project.

Abidin Kusno [AK]: I think it would be more interesting and important for us if we discuss Iswanto’s work through dialogue, or interview, more so than if I write from one side on your work, it so happens that Stephanus Huwae is present. So I’ll just start. Your work for the solo exhibition at Galeri Sumardja, Bandung ‘BLUE’, is intriguing, a replica of a fighter plane, it seems.

Iswanto Hartono [IH]:
Yes, F-117A Nighthawk, better known as the Stealth. I made the replica close to its original size, approximately 15 x 10 m, big enough. The aircraft was first used by the US during the Gulf War in the Middle East.

AK: Ha ha…you’re more familiar than I am with American fighters.

IH:
At first I was thinking of making the replica in steel, but in the process the aircraft fuselage would be clad with flower-patterned fabric, or something, I still don’t know, and I’ll attach neon lights on the aircraft’s structure. But that I haven’t decided, it depends on its process for the work is still in the production process at this moment. My intention is I don’t want the aircraft to look intimidating, I want a more popular [pop] imagination and delete its dangerous nuance, unlike, say, military fatigue.

AK: How many works [are you going to have]?

IH:
Can be two, can be just one. I’m preparing the second one, a silkscreen replica of aerial photograph of WTC Ground Zero, New York, its size is approximately
3 x 10 m. I’ll show this work like Warhol silkscreen, a repetition.

AK: Black and white as in the image, or colored?

IH: That I haven’t decided…the work is still unfinished…so it’s still in the process as well…haha…

DEALING WITH VIOLENCE

AK: There’s something intriguing and I see a continuation of your works and the theme of war, it seems to be ‘war and violence’?

IH:
I actually don’t want to talk about war from its violent side. That’s not my aim, war and images of death and blood, I think it’s commonly shown in Hollywood war movies depicting ‘victims’ and ‘heroes’. My intention really is toward the issues behind the war itself, yet it’s obvious that these issues are brought to you by ‘wars’, like the issues on ‘border’, neo-colonialism, geo-politics, power-politics,etc., I’d like to emphazise the political-cultural side behind a war. If I want to address its violence, then the form, the image of my works would be different in form, perhaps there’ll be lots of images of darkness and death. Like my works for the exhibition of Oil Inc. at Red Mill Gallery in Vermont and Galeri Cemara6 last year, I made a serial painting using car engine oil as the medium and there were no images of war victims. Instead there were a painting using car engine oil as its medium and several images of geographical maps; I wanted to express my uneasiness about the issues of power-politics, geo-politics, and neo-colonialism behind the Gulf War and US and allies’ invasion to Iraq at that time. Obviously it wasn’t just an issue of war akin to what happened in the colonial days, but obviously there were issues such as economic interests, power-politics order in global geo-political structure, and it’s more so obvious that my intention wasn’t to attack particular subject, the US for instance … I think it’s a universal problem at this moment. It may befall any country and can be carried out by anybody. There are movies depicting US and allied soldiers’ ambiguity during the Iraq invasion, why should they fight? An absurdity.

AK:
Well I think your statement justifies what we call culture. We recognize war as an activity carried out with highly rationalistic planning and possesses values of precise and accurate calculations. Whereas your intention is to connect it with elements of pop, or popular culture. That’s what I call culture, a culture of war pertaining to the beholder of power, and not about the war itself. So you are opening up a dialogue with problems of political culture behind a war. This may answer your uneasiness … a war behind a war, which tends to be invincible but begs to appear.

TAMING WAR FROM WITHIN

SH:
The way I see it, Iswanto tries to create a connection between systems external to him, he tried to become a media or a medium I think.

AK:
I think he wants to question the system external to him, and he seems to get trapped in that system, so his dialogues are still within the system. But this becomes interesting because, I think, he unconsciously thinks he’s capable to be outside the system of militaristic culture and capitalism, and criticize them from out there, yet simultaneously he’ also trapped and gets into the system itself.

SH:
And one needs certain cleverness to be able to move between these polars …

SH:
That’s why I need such cleverness. I think the thing is that one can easily get trapped within text of such grand system. But, consciously or otherwise, I see Iswanto as a homo ludens, in its totality.

IH:
True, when I was small I really liked toys and was familiar—and liked so much—toy soldiers, like those I used in the installations of some of my works.

SH:
Not only in playing something, but also in perceiving life, I think you also just play. I know him rather well and it looks to me that’s how he perceives life, in works or his personal life.

AK:
The capability to adapt. What’s interesting is your way to adapt readily-available forms into something non-confrontative. It seems to be one of the keys, there are two opposite things which are intertwined with each other.
That’s a reflection of a messed-up identity ….. that keeps seeking new fitting form without demolishing the form … but that looks good! Ha ha..

IH:
What do you mean by messed-up, Abidin?

AK:
Not messed-up in its literal sense. But the truth is you are uneasy with what we call the prevailing social norm, and you want to create a dialogue by inserting yourself into that social structure, without ditching the structure. So a sort of ‘adaptation’ occurs. I don’t know whether in this case we have elements of peranakan, ha, ha… but obviously there occurs an adaptation toward the social norm. Much of your works ‘adapt’ the prevailing structure without damaging or destroying these structures, but instead your works play with them. Perhaps it originates from your life experience, which taught you to keep adapting. So I think it’s more than just the anti-war issue.

IH:

In my intention there is no desire to state an anti-war expression.

AK:
But there’s something you have to admit that it’s an anti-war statement which uses war.

IH:
No, no. I’m not at all interested to talk about the anti-war talks. It’s more about what’s within a ‘culture’ behind a war.

BEHIND MASCULINITY?

Stephanus Huwae [SH]:
When I see Iswanto with his works we’re talking about, I see much of his feminine side appears.

IH:
I don’t think I ever address something pertaining to gender.

AK:
Let’s find where his feminine side appears… On your work, “What Warhol Miss to Print?” Here it’s obvious that there’s a masculine side, where the image explicitely shows a very masculine way of seeing, the Ground Zero seen from above. But simultaneously I think you want to show that the image can also be perceived from its feminine side, not just from its masculine side, through the approach and method akin to what Warhol did to his pop culture. I think there’s an interesting connection between production and consumption; the product is masculine, but when consumed its feminine side rises. Is it really like that?

IH:
My real intention is to transform the image of a war machine which tends to be masculine and tough; transforming it into a vehicle to play with, yet still I think when the public see the well-known form of the aircraft [stealth F117A], I think they’d still get a nuance of ‘powerful’.
That’s my intention, ‘power’ in its true self, power that hidden behind the aircraft form, as if it were about to attack or rule anybody at anytime. I do such reductions of meaning just because I want to make it into an ambiguous work, just like a view within the visual arts that I subscribe, between artist/non-artist, arts/non-arts, identity/non-identity. I like something ambiguous.

AK:
There’s indeed a consistence throughout your previous and present works, ambiguity, dualism, between something tough, like pistol, military fatigues, icons like Hitler, Mao, which are followed by popular icons; so it’s inevitably read within the discourse of gender. Let’s see the pink colors wich are stereotyped as the color of Barbie dolls on your previous works.

SH:
I remember there was the icon of Marylin Monroe you once used.

IH:
Yes, what’s intriguing about the image is that Marylin’s poster was used by the US as propaganda poster to entertain US troops during the Second World War, issued in 1940s.

AK:
Dualism has indeed become a very strong element in your works, producing dialogues between violence/war and unserious attitude as shown by borrowing iconographies from the side of gender, such as colors, patterns, in order to create a dialogue with men’s world. It turns out the element of gender is very strong in your works ….I think I now now more…haha..

SPECTACLE AND WAR THROUGH COMMODITY

AK:
Let’s talk about what we call as ‘spectacle’; about how to communicate an art work to the public. The theory of spectacle is generally understood as a cultural event that gets people unconscious. Even when they are conscious, that’s only in term of being aware of the “arts” which has lost its political element. A simple example, though it may be wrong, is to imagine someone doing a window shopping at a mall. What actually being consumed are color patterns which liberate us from critical questions such as where the products came from. It’s the colors that matter. So there’s a kind of release from bitter fact regarding production and consumption. But maybe you want to try something more than just that, how to shift such spectacle from passivity to activity. And it seems the challenge you’re facing withing your artistic world is how to transform the spectacle from something passive into something active, so it would shock people ….ah..it is this… it’s kinda scarry, huh?…. I think what’s important to discuss is how you effectively communicate such matter, so that your work would not buoyed by colors …, but it would shock people, to make the aware, shocking in the sense of soft shocking, not harsh, due to your feminine side. Ha, ha, ha….

SH:
That I think he already did in his previous works. I had a shock myself when he exhibited a work in the form of a game of war, it was all a game. That what made me shocked; it’s war, but it’s seen in a playfull manner.

AK:
But generally such shock, say, an anti-war artist would have a tendency to present works with the portrayals of the brutality of war, victims, children, deaths and blood to create the shock effect. But the kind of shocking effect that you present is another thing … like what Stephanus Huwae said earlier… the soft, the playfull, which is hard to pull out because it’s frequently unfit the concept of violence …

IH:
That’s what I don’t like, brutality …I mean, its portrayal.

AK:
Could you explicitely show how you play with the concept of shock and spectacle without portraying brutality? I think Iswanto’s work becomes interesting since he voices what he calls as violence without using the language of violence …

SH:
I think it’s not violence in the sense like the aforementioned brutality, but he has to be aware of his own version of violence. So you are engineering a shock that is unlike the common shock.

IH:
I don’t think such brutality would visually become essential. It’s indeed an important aspect of war, but, say, in ‘Come O ye Faithful, Paratroopers’, I deployed the jargons of Christmas carols for instance, or bestowing phrases like ….’Victory is Mellow’. I thought war was mellow…a kind of feeling that war victory is vague, for it becomes mellow.

SH:
Sometimes I think that your works lies on the thin boundary between art-work and non-art work. You used games idioms for an exhibition, which are obviously global fabricated product, something that can be purchased anywhere.

IH:
Isn’t war a game? Like my joint exhibition with Amrizal Sulai, Game is Not [Yet] Over, 2004, in which we presented war-themed games which could be played by the pubic, and such war-themed games are popularly played by kids at their homes, and even could be retrieved cheaply, for they are all duplicates.

AK:
But what frightens me is a culture of violence/war can get into the culture of toy, no distinction between real violence and game; they get meshed. Is such meshing can be seen as a meshing of capitalism and the culture of war? Such thing is evident in Warhol’s, which talk about the pressure of capitalism’s consummerism, such as coca cola’s attack (dalam berbagai warna), Campbell soup, etc. And all war toys you bought (often with affordable prices) are also products of capitalism.

IH:
When I did research for the work and carry out the production process, I was clearly given an advantage by such capitalism’s products. I bought a model toy of F-117A, which became my basis model to produce my work. 1/48 scaled, and precisely like the real thing, so it was very easy for me to get its real scale and produce the aircraft structure.

AK:
But I recognize the power of your works, especially this one, lies on intimation [not intimidation]. They are intimate patterns that cannot be externalized immediately, so the mai communication is to be done through the work. But what worries me is how something harsh could cooperate with something soft? That’s what becomes your desire to communicate social condition, so it would make people aware of the fact that they are involved in forming the culture of violence … often unconsciously. When the soft and the harsh get well knitted, that’s where my shock really is. So it seems in a rather unconscious manner, even the weakest segment of society get involved in the production of culture of violence; that worries me. And that itself is already shocking.

IH:
Perhaps in unconscious manner such culture of dualism (combination of violence and softness) is already in my psyche, for since I was a kid I’ve liked war movies, [like the ones depicting] Vietnam War for instance. The same is true when it comes to toys pertaining to war, plastic toy soldiers, war machine models…I’m familiar with such stuffs.

AK:
That’s where the success, which is also worrying, of how an intimate thing can be so well-knitted with the culture of violence that they become indiscernible. So there’s a kind of fascination toward war, and such fascination makes people want to try to have connection with war, and there’s its frightening aesthetical element. This is necessary to make people aware, and it’s necessary to have a more critical consciousness to create a gap; it’s because the gap is no longer there, things are intertwined already. It’s a translation of a psychic life in a form of a work, like what you do.

SH:
Aside from all that, perhaps violence has become a commonality.

AK:
Yes, everyday life…

IH:
We’re living in a country full of violence, that’s the very basic, first point of beginning …

AK:
Yes, but you’ve formed a dialogue with the violence within you. You don’t confront it personally, but you express it through your work. I think it’s a good exploration for you try to express your psychic life through a dialogue with a wider audience. Works of Warhol, too, actually share the same value. Crash, for instance, on traffic accidents in the US, also provokes the American public psychic life and celebrates fascination over death, could form an effect that unites the feeling of a nation on the basis of unification of perception on death. And such uniformed responses could connect one individual with another. Replicas or duplication by Warhol, in a certain pattern, try to unite perception. Let’s get back to your technique of representation. Lte’s talk about order and scale, for in your current wor scale and order seem to be so dominant.

TECHNIQUE OF REPRESENTATION

IH:
I don’t really think of the presence of an order in the process of making a work.

AK:
But I see a clear order. I think it’s not just due to technical onsideration. Since I see in certain dimension and scale, which are large enough in your work, this would prompt viewers to focus on one certain point. I imagine in a gallery space, from all positions, visitors’ eyes are always directed toward an object due to its dimension.

IH:
Yes, in certain things it is so. Scale becomes an important thing for me, for I want something powerful. Because I want to talk about power.

AK:
That’s where the spectre is; people are made to feel being haunted, like your unforgettable childhood.
But indeed what is termed as ‘socially conceptual art’ has to be expressed, and I think your aircraft work is a powerful one.

IH:
The Stealth is indeed a powerful machine. Just imagine, it can fly to enemy’s territory, or anywhere at that matter, without getting detected by radar. It’s so easy to go with it to infiltrate a country and destroy anything at will. Isn’t it a very powerful and dangerous war machine for all?

AK:
Exactly … how to raise society’s critical consiousness on ‘power’ of violence, which violent side is unseen. This is what I considered earlier as worrying. When I saw it for the first time, the aircraft’s form looks like a toy, like origami, a piece of paper folded into the shape of an aircraft, very everyday…a very frightening everyday.

The interview take place at Ruang Bengkel, Architecture School, Universitas Tarumanagara, Jakarta, Indonesia. 23/02/2007. English translation by Mohammad Nanda Widyarta.

Abidin Kusno is a former Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow in the Metropolitan Studies Program at the New York University, ‘Behind the Postcolonial: Architecture, Urban Space and Poltitical Cultures in Indonesia’ is one of his book that has been widely published and become one of the important source for the cultural studies in Indonesia. He posted as ………..at the University of British Columbia, Canada, at present.

Stephanus Huwae is a senior lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Tarumanagara University, Jakarta, Indonesia.